State of Mind

Life feels like shit
State of Mind is a narrative game by Daedalic with a pretty good story, lacking graphics and great atmopshere.
The game starts slow and feels meh at the start, but later it sucks you in with its world and story. It's a bit cliché story but it's good in the end. The character named Richard wakes up from a car crash and after some time he realizes something isn not right and tries to find what really happened to him.
This game would've been a great rpg game. As a narrative game it's above average, but not amazing. It tackles too many topics and doesn't go deep enough into any of them. If this would be a lengthy rpg game it would be able to do that and tell an amazing story. There's a lot of different topics to explore in this game, like AI and all the sci-fi stuff, love, relationships, family, poverty, human values, what is life, but you just get a glimpse at all these topics. You want to know more about some characters but you can't. The only topic explored in the game which was enough was about prostitution, that scene hits you hard and there's nothing more to tell, plain and simple.
The world is extremely small, there are small areas and your apartment where you run around, but they feel good and are nicely done overall.
This is mainly a narrative game and all those puzzle sections near the end seems out of place. They're not needed in narrative games, especially when they're so cheap that it feels they came right from a free mobile game. Although i'm a fan of point&click games I never liked Daedalic point&click games, but I absolutely love that they're leaning more towards narrative games lately, Pillars of the Eart being a masterpiece. I hope they'll keep going this path.
I didn't get what's the point of choices you make at the end of the game. The ending is exactly the same whatever you choose. I mean at least put some effort into the ending scene.
I think the reason for all these lacking things is that this game had a very small budget and just couldn't fit everything into one game sadly.
Controls most of the time are painful, you often bump into objects, walls or just can't run through the doorway. These were one of weirdest controls i've ever experienced, it's just wonky af.
Graphically the game looks good, very clean aesthetically. But character models are ugly. I don't think is the right way to go. Again I think this was done because they had a small budget, but still it's disappointing. Characters also don't have any emotions or lip syncing, just dead faces speaking.
Voice acting is decent. You'll certainly know the main character's voice. But some other characters are really lacking, especially the kid, I don't know if it's just me, but his voice felt really bad and unnatural.
So this is another game with an amazing idea which ended being just above average because no one fucking cares to finance these great ideas. Publishers rather finance shallow ubis***, ea and repetitive yearly copy paste multiplayer games. It's a sad world we live in.
If you like narrative games, cyberpunk, sci-fi and good stories then buy this game. It's still an enjoyable ride even with all its flaws.
Pros
Good story
Nice atmosphere
Tries to explore various topics
Graphically everything beside characters looks good
Cons
Annoying controls
Characters are lifeless
You want to know much more than game tells you
Unnecessary puzzle sections
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This game heavily reminds me of former Playstation exclusives by Quantic Dream, Beyond: Two Souls, Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human. It is a very narrative driven game, or putting it very bluntly, a long cutscene with tons of conversations sparsely sprinkled with bouts of player interactivity. This does not make it a bad game. It makes it a casual, sometimes interactive walk and an acquired taste. Or at least a very polarizing game. I'm leaning towards the recommended side.
It's a cyberpunk thriller set in 2084 about transhumanism and everything that it brings. Think Blade Runner, old and new mixed with a few more things, The Matrix, I,Robot and a few more. I even got a hint of Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams. The game's world building is excellent, bringing two immersive locations, dystopian Berlin and weirdly utopian City5, to life. The minimal, polygonal visuals and the overall aesthetics are very stylish and do not break the immersion of the game's weighty story. The game's soundtrack is also very good, further enhancing the joy of wandering around the locations.
The story itself is good, characters are well developed and voice acting is well done. The pacing could have been better. Sometimes it drags on too long and sometimes it dumps a giant exposition bucket with 15 facts at once on your head. But, it's just a minor gripe.
Gameplay is rather linear with not much player choice, most of the story is set no matter what you answer. There are lots of things to read and examine, filling out the world, but not much of it is actually useful in the context of progressing. Since the game is the story, I won't mention anything about it. Just know it's worth going through it at least once. It is an adventure game in a sense, but there are no actual puzzles or inventory use. What little of it there is, is very minimal and not challenging in any way.
One real issue I have is the very weird and wonky movement, like they were trying to somehow simulate the occasional jerkiness of people's movements, but it didn't translate into the game very well. It takes getting used to.
The game played smoothly and I've had no technical difficulties or crashes. Only once did the game bug out. When I was trying to take a screenshot, I wanted to position myself to get another character's face into the frame and that character moved, getting me stuck in place. Restarting the checkpoint solved the problem.
If you've played any Quantic Dream games, Indigo Prophecy was on the PC ages ago, or anything of theirs on the Playstation (or the Epic Store now), you'll probably like this game. For anyone else and fans of cyberpunk/sf, the world, story and characters deserve to be seen and heard at least once. The asking price is a bit of an issue for a game like this, but if you can get it on sale, you'll be more than satisfied.
Take a peek inside the newly opened Cabinet of Curiosities if you like to walk off the beaten path and only sometimes return to the main roads. You might find something worth exploring. And if you do, thank you for the visit.
Follow the Average Achievement Hunter Curator for reviews and useful information on Steam achievements: I finished the game with 21/34 achievements. There are lots of missable and limited achievements, but all of them can be done by loading checkpoints and chapters. The game does a good job autosaving and only two achievements require replaying larger bits of the game. None of the achievements are difficult and usually require making different choices in the playthrough.

A decent story, if you have the patience for it. It takes more than the first "chapter" to hook you in, and while most dialog can be skipped, none of the cut-scenes can. On top of that, movement feels laggy and awkward. The mini-games/puzzles were more annoying than adding anything of value.
It is rare I could see myself preferring a movie more than a game, but I think this might be one of those cases. That said, the story is enjoyable enough that it just passes the "recommended" threshold.
Additional Details

Operating System
Ubuntu Linux 18.04 x64


CPU
Ryzen 5 1500x


GPU
GTX 1050, nvidia-410.104


Game Saves
Automatically, though sometimes too infrequently


Notes
Painful to replay, no choices seem to matter except for the very end (where the change is just in your head anyway)


Technical Notes
A lot of interaction felt laggy

The problem is: Would I recommend the first half of State of Mind? Absolutely yes. Would I recommend the second half of State of Mind? Probably not.
The first half of the game is a captivating narrative of a very well portrayed near-future. The mechanics are familiar but never boring and the world manages to feel both realistic and handcrafted.
The second half of the game feels like a lesser game had been implanted on the first one and suddendly took control. The narrative-driven adventure and the wonderful duality that it created is substituted by a generic slog of puzzles that leads to an uninteresting and uninspired ending.
If the second half of the game lived up to the standards of its first half, it would had been a great and memorable adventure game. Unfortunately the game falls short of its premise and fails to deliver the surprising and exciting ending this game deserved.

State of Mind is a Sci-Fi thriller game with beautiful polygon-style and a good story that kept me invested till the end.
Pros:
- Great artstyle, and it works really well with game's theme and story, love it
- Good OST, ranges from cyberpunk (obviously) to Sadcore
- Captivating story with interesting side characters and good plot twists along the way, makes you want to know more about the characters and the world
- Superb voice acting, as Daedalic Entertainment is known for that I suppose
- Well optimized, never crashed
- Good cyberpunk world with a dark tone and a realistic vision of the world
Cons:
- Even though I said the OST is good, there is one song that they keep playing on loop multiple times throughout the game (and the menu) and it was driving me crazy, hated that music.
- The first hour is somewhat boring, a lot of exposition , but after that the story picks up
- They could have just removed multiple sections of the game as they were redundant and didn't have an affect on the game whatsoever, just an excuse to make the game longer I suppose
- The protagonist is somewhat of a dick sometimes, as there were certain choice that you had to pick between that makes you look like an asshole eitherway, but I am pretty sure that was intentional at the start of the game
In the end, the game took me about 10 hours to complete and I really enjoyed it, despite the cons.
verdict: 8/10
If you like my review then do follow my Curator Page . it would mean a lot to me <3

I'm going to list the negatives of this game first. As if you're able to push past these things, it's a very enjoyable game, especially on sale. Full price, it's a bit harder to recommend.
The overall setting is rather generic and banal. It's very character driven. If you don't find some connection with the characters, this story isn't going to work for you.
The game is extremely linear. You do get to make decisions that will affect some things. Some more dramatic than others. But, the vast majority of the narrative is set.
The character movement is.. to be described succinctly — wonky. Any and all of the characters you'll control will have a terrible time turning around (I was begging for a RE4 style turn around function the whole game.) They also tend to favor going in random semi circles when trying to go left or right.
The pacing is awful. The game slows to a crawl at points then speeds up and reveals 10 things at once. And then alters that pattern throughout.
Some of the puzzles are quite simple and occasionally don't really make any sense.
Now, if you're still interested. This is a good story. And it's worth playing.
"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane." — Phillip K. D*ck
Due to the core of this game being such that going through the story yourself is what the game actually is. I can't really say anything specific. What I can say is that you'll play as Richard Nolan, voiced by the great Doug Cockle himself (Geralt of Rivia). Richard is a journalist. An accused luddite, insofar that he has written articles about his anti robotic pseudo agenda. And that's about all I'm going to give you.
It's got a little bit of The Matrix, a little bit of SOMA, some Detroit: Become Human, a pinch of I, Robot, hints of a small game called Divide and then sprinkle some “Remember Me” and Minority Report on top of all that.
Some of those are dead on, and some are purposefully misleading.
THE GIST:
State of Mind is understandably polarizing. But, if you like cyberpunk and heavily story driven games then I can't say you'd go wrong here. The low-poly art is pretty good, too.
Post Script: I'm not sure if they intended a Metal Gear Solid vibe to this whole game. But when you have the gravelly voice of Doug Cockle repeatedly talking about there being too many surveillance cameras.. I gotta wonder.
If you've read this far, consider following my curation — Station Argus

Enjoy this game as it depicts how humanity might become in future, ofc it has flying cars.
This is a Future-bit-cyberpunk game, where you are playing as Robert wants his family back and also wanna be with his GF (yeah he is an a-s-s-hole many times).
+ beautiful with polygon type animation
+ Good plot
+ good music
+ good voice acting
Good Game
PS - the main protagonist is voiced by Geralt of Rivia voice actor